The recent new cases of measles in some
of the regions in USA has sent a panic alarm and social debate has sprung up
about vaccination of children against the common contagious diseases that are
known to kill many children in other parts of the world. The only way to
protect the precious life is by vaccination, a proven strategy against the contagious diseases. The USA had declared in the year 2000 that country was free of measles. However, occurrence of new cases and rapid spread has
shown deficiency in the vaccination program.
Measles is a viral disease, highly contagious
and can spread rapidly in a human settlement. The disease mostly affects
children, and cause infection of the respiratory system, skin and the immune system.
The disease develops in 1-2 weeks after the exposure to the virus and some of
the initial symptoms include high fever, running nose, redness in eyes, loss of
appetite and accompanied with body rashes. The body generally recuperates from
the infection in couple of weeks provided no other complications develop.
Image source: http://www.clinicaspace.com/
Although majority of the patients
recovers, in some patients complication may lead to pneumonia, and in some rare
cases, 1 in 100,000, it may result in measles encephalitis which is fatal. Those
who survive may develop mental illness and retardation.
According to a
report in 2011, despite an increase in overall vaccination, 6.7 million
children did not receive vaccination for measles in India leading
to measles
outbreak and 29,339 measles cases were registered that year. According to Center for disease control (CDC) an estimated 20 million people
get measles Worldwide and nearly 146,000 people die from the disease each
year—that equals about 440 deaths every day. Therefore, preventing the occurrence
of viral infection by vaccination is one safe way of protection from the
disease.
Many scientifically unsound correlation studies have claimed that vaccination likely results in the autism which has
deterred many parents from vaccinating their wards. In many state of the USA the
laws related to vaccination has been relaxed and option of vaccination has been
left to choice. Scientists assert that link between autism and vaccination is
only correlational and no causal link between two could stand the scientific
scrutiny. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Chief medical correspondent of CNN argues that while the amount of vaccine used in single shot has declined over the years and the incidences of autism has increased over this duration nevertheless (see below). This suggests that there is no direct link between the vaccine and autism.
image source: wfmz.com
CDC recommends that all the children
should get two doses of MMR vaccine, starting with the first dose at 12 through
15 months of age, and the second dose at 4 through 6 years of age.
As the age-old adage goes, “prevention
is better than cure”, therefore vaccination should be considered seriously for
preventing the precious life of unsuspecting children that are threatened by
the deadly diseases.
